Many non-native English speakers have problems pronouncing the American consonants /r/ and /l/. Since /r/ and /l/ are found at the beginning and end of many English words it is important to pronounce these sounds correctly.

Here are a few tips you can use to make these sounds.

Making the /r/ sound

To make the /r/ raise your tongue into a bunched up position. Do not touch the top of your mouth with your tongue!

Practice by saying these words: red, raid, wrist, right, wrong, rice

Making the /l/ sound

To make the /l/ touch the tip of your tongue behind your top teeth. The flow of air through your mouth should move freely.

Do you ever feel like the English spelling system does not match the sounds of spoken American English? It seems that way doesn’t it?

English spelling is the way that words are written using the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. Since English is not a phonetic language there is not always a one-on-one relationship between the letters in the English alphabet and spoken sounds.

This lack of sound spelling correspondence makes English a very difficult language to pronounce. Let’s look at some sound-spelling situations that are frequently confusing to non-native speakers of American English. We’ll start with the letter s.

When you are speaking English the letter s can represent several different sounds depending on its location within a word.

In the words simple and same the s sounds like /s/. This is what most non-native speakers expect. The /s/ is a voiceless sound

In the words resign and design the s sounds like /z/. The letter s is often pronounced as /z/ when it occurs between vowels. The /z/ is a voiced sound.

In the words leisure and pleasure the s sounds like /ʒ/. This is also a voiced sound. The s often sounds like /ʒ/ before a schwa vowel sound.

The fact that the letter s is pronounced three different ways can be very confusing when you are trying to pronounce English correctly!

One way to improve your pronunciation is to be aware of the variety of sounds that some letters can have.

The best way to do this is to listen attentively when American English speakers are talking. Try to increase your awareness of sounds and spelling patterns. Enhanced listening skills are one of the first steps in improving your American English pronunciation.

When I do accent reduction coaching with my clients from Japan, Korea, China, Latin America (and sometimes India, France & Haiti) we work on the sounds of the American R.

As you can see….he American English r is a very difficult sound for many non-native speakers to articulate correctly! ✔

The American English r sounds like /ɚ/. The sound is made by bunching the middle of the tongue high in the back of the mouth and rounding the lips. The tip of the tongue curls up a bit, but it never touches the roof of the mouth.

When a vowel is followed by an r, the vowel sound changes. These are called r-controlled vowels, or r-colored vowels.

Here are some of the phonemes you will hear.

The letters ar can sound like /ɑɚ/ as in: car, guitar & star.

The letters ear can sound like /iɚ/ as in: near, fear & beard.

The letters or usually sound like /ɔɚ/ as in: or, more & course.

The letters ir, er and ur, sound like /ɚ/ as in: bird, were, & fur.

Since the sounds of r-colored vowels are so complicated, many pronunciation books and courses simplify these.

The best book that I know of for learning the r-colored vowel sounds is Ann Cook’s American Accent Training. You can see the book by clicking on the link below.